Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Hotline On Call reports that the Connecticut Senate race may be about to get another entrant:

July 11, 2006As Connecticut TurnsThis just in from our guy in CT, Hartford Courant's Kevin Rennie:

Just when you thought the Connecticut race for the U.S. Senate could grow no odder, Republican state Representative Diana Urban today took out petitions for an independent run, creating the possibility of a four way race should Democrat challenger Ned Lamont defeat Senator Joseph Lieberman in the August 8th primary. Lieberman has also taken out petitions. Urban, 56, will be running as an anti-war candidate and in a brief telephone interview sounded like a Republican version of Cindy Sheehan. The three term state legislator, claiming the Bush administration possesses a “flat learning curve”, says America went into Iraq for the wrong reasons. She says she was heavily influenced by recently published account of the war, Cobra II. On a more philosophical level, she cleaves to the Sun-Tzu’s Art of War, declaring that her campaign strategy comes from him: “The path will reveal itself to you.”

Claiming “a number of women asked me over and over again to do this”, Urban is not giving up her race for re-election to the state legislature, for which she is unopposed from her affluent southeastern Connecticut district, previously represented by Iraq war enthusiast, Congressman Rob Simmons.

Normally, the GOP would have no chance in a Connecticut Senate race. If Lieberman were the Democratic nominee, running against any Republican, he would clean up. If Ned Lamont is the Democratic nominee, and faces a Republican and no Independent candidate, he would wipe the floor with his opponent.

But if voters have a choice of an anti-war Democrat (Lamont), a pro-war Independent Democrat (Lieberman), an anti-war Republican Independent (Urban), and a normal Republican (Schlesinger), what would that Republican need to get in order to win? I have no idea. But adding a candidate who is likely to draw as many votes from Lamont and Lieberman as from Schlesinger can only help him.

I've said from the start that I don't understand why Democrats would want to put a safe Senate seat at risk, in a year when they have a small chance to win a majority, just to satisfy partisan purity standards.

If Urban runs, it can only help the chances that Republicans take away a seat.

Update: I see that Harold Meyerson defends the challenge to Lieberman. We'll have to see whether Urban is at all a serious candidate. If so, it will change the calculations.